In the late 80s, I received a Game Boy and I was instantly addicted to Tetris. I would photograph my high scores and submit them to the Nintendo Magazine. I saw the huge rocket launch several times after completing level 9 high 5, and I would play matches with a friend at school.

What stuck with me until today is the video game music and that’s true for most video games I played throughout my teenage years.

Remember the sound of Tetris? Or the popsong “The Postal Service” from Brand New Colony that was inspired by the Super Mario music? And did you see the Peter Gabriel video “Curtains” in the Myst IV game?

Would you like to create the soundtrack to your own video gamer career? Here are the resources to download free video game music.

VGMusic has been around for 13 years. With that, it’s one of the oldest video game music archives, covering consoles from Nintendo, SEGA, SONY, Microsoft, NEC, SNK, ATARI, as well as computer systems, and several more. Among the sites presented here, this one is the most widespread and possibly the largest archive. The Nintendo Game Boy directory alone contains almost 2,000 MIDI files.

ASMA is by its own description “the biggest and only official Atari XL / XE music archive.”

The start page contains a comprehensive list with information, including a zipped version of the complete archive, player and plugin downloads, tools, and a FAQ.

The archive can be searched by clicking on the ASMADB (ASMA database) button and entering a search query. If you leave the search field empty and hit the “Search now!” button you’ll be able to browse through all files in the archive.

The free video game music index at Autofish provides three music boxes dedicated to different game systems: Commodore 64 (C64), Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Each box contains a table with games and the respective music files.

The C64 SID music files come in ZIP archive. To play these tunes in Winamp, you need to install a SID plugin, which can be downloaded from the Winamp homepage. NES NSF files work with Winamp if this plugin was installed. SNES SPC files require this plugin for Winamp. To install plugins close Winamp, copy .dll file into Plugins folder, start Winamp and play file.

The site was founded in 1999 and is “dedicated to the appreciation, preservation, and interpretation of video game music.” This archive contains free video game music of almost all systems, including Nintendo, SEGA, SONY, Microsoft, and many more.

Each ReMix receives a short evaluating article that may also uncover some of the song’s or game’s background.

Remix.Kwed.Org

RKO calls itself “The Definitive Guide to C64 Remakes”.

It contains over 2,500 tunes by over 700 artists. The archive can be sorted by date uploaded, title, arranger, composer, or rating.

There are two files for each song: the original SID and the remix as MP3.

Great list, although I think you should have included remixSite, at http://www.remixsite.org/. In addition to offering free music from many composers, remixSite also allows anyone to submit a song for free without being passed through a panel of judges first. Musicians can submit music and let it be judged by the public. Original game music is also available as well.

I've been searching for Lode Runner: The Legend returns soundtrack for years. I've only ever found one track before. One more track today thanks to these links. Ta. Anyone know where I can find the rest?
I still have the cdrom. How can I extract them? Anyone?

Hi Tina! Great piece, I also like video game music. The sites will be useful.
However, in the third paragraph, the song is "Brand New Colony" and the band is the Postal Service. One of my favorite songs, actually! Thank you for mentioning it!

Tina has been writing about consumer technology for over a decade. She holds a Doctorate in Natural Sciences, a Diplom from Germany, and an MSc from Sweden. Her analytical background has helped her excel as a technology journalist at MakeUseOf, where she's heading the Windows and Productivity sections.